Marketwatch: The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs in February while hiring in January and December was revised up by a combined 61,000, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The unemployment rate remained at 8.3%, largely because more people entered the workforce in search of jobs.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast the U.S. would add 213,000 jobs last month, with the jobless rate holding steady at 8.3%.

Subtracting another decline in government jobs, the private sector boosted payrolls by 233,000.

….job gains for January were revised up to 284,000 from 243,000 – the biggest monthly increase since the recession ended – and December’s employment gains were revised up to 223,000 from 203,000. The past three months of full-time job growth is the fastest since early 2006

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Thanks desertflower

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First Lady Michelle Obama meets with Ernestina Mills, First Lady of Ghana, at the State Department in Washington, D.C., March 8. (Photo by Sonya N. Hebert)

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10:40: PBO departs the White House en route Joint Base Andrews

11:35: Arrives Richmond, Virginia

12:15: Tours Rolls-Royce Crosspointe

12:30: Delivers remarks at Rolls-Royce Crosspointe

2:40: Departs Richmond, Virginia en route Houston, Texas

3:40: Arrives Houston

4:50: Delivers remarks at a campaign event

6:50: Delivers remarks at a campaign event

8:10: Departs Houston

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ThinkProgress: Rush Limbaugh’s advertising exodus is deep into its second week, and despite the radio host’s claim that the impact of 50 companies pulling their business has been negligible, listeners in the nation’s largest media market were treated to over five minutes of radio silence where Limbaugh’s advertisers once stood today.

There were four separate instances during this afternoon’s broadcast on WABC 770 AM in New York City where the network fell silent. During the lead in to the show, two and a half minutes of silence was broken up by a single, solitary ad before Limbaugh hit the air.

InsideHigherEd: … Roughly two-thirds of public and private college presidents say they plan to vote for President Obama in November, and only 1 in 10 believe the Republican candidates for the presidency have laid out a helpful vision for higher education.

…. 65.1 percent said that they planned to vote for the president this fall. Among sectors, support was stronger in public higher education (75 percent at public doctoral and master’s institutions, 85 percent at public baccalaureate institutions and 66 percent at community colleges). The lowest level of support was in for-profit higher education, where only 29 percent of presidents said they plan to vote for Obama this fall.

…. Only 10 percent of all college presidents believed that the Republican candidates have offered a higher education vision, but that figure is inflated by a high proportion of yes answers from for-profit higher education (44 percent). The figures are much lower for the rest of higher education – 4 percent among public doctoral institutions, 3 percent among public master’s institutions, and not a single private doctoral university president agreeing.

Steve Benen: The general trend on initial unemployment claims over the last few months has been largely encouraging, though there have been occasional setbacks. Today’s report appears to be one of them.

Though still low by recent standards, filings went up over the last week, a little more than expected: “Jobless claims in the U.S. rose to the highest level in five weeks, climbing by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 362,000…”

….. when these jobless claims fall below the 400,000 threshold, it’s considered evidence of an improving jobs landscape. When the number drops below 370,000, it suggests jobs are actually being created rather quickly. Though today’s report is disappointing, we’ve now been below 370,000 for five consecutive weeks, and six of the last eight weeks.

Charles Pierce: I have tried to avoid the mighty efforts of the heirs of Andrew Breitbart to make his name more of a synonym for “jackass” in death than it was when he was alive. So, instead, let’s just play a little Harvard bingo, shall we?

Barack Obama once went to the Harvard Law School. Derrick Bell once taught at the Harvard Law School.

…. In 1992, Derrick Bell thought that “none” was an insufficient number of minority faculty members at the HLS. He decided to make a little noise about it. At a rally, Barack Obama introduced him and, after doing so, hugged him….

President Obama meets President John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana in the Oval Office, March 8

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TPM: President Obama enjoys massive leads in Maine, according to a new survey from Public Policy Polling (D) …. Obama leads both former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum by the same margin in the Pine Tree State, 58 – 35. Maine has voted for a Democrat for president in the last five elections, but that doesn’t mean Dems dominate the state – Republicans currently hold the governorship, both houses of the state legislature and the two US Senate seats (Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)).

ThinkProgress: Questions about women and womens’ health have dominated the political debate over the past weeks, and at least one female Republican lawmaker is unhappy with her party’s record. New York Assemblyman Teresa Sayward (R), who is retiring after serving a decade in Albany, told the New York political program Capital Tonight that she does not support any of her party’s presidential candidates, because of their stances on women.

She also took an apparent shot at Republicans’ opposition to President Obama’s birth control mandate, saying, “It’s disheartening for me to see our party move away from what it was always about and that is to stay out of people’s lives, let them live their lives, don’t impose their religion on anybody else.”

Asked which Republican candidate she supports, Sayward replied: “I do not have a favorite in the presidential race, if I had to vote today, I’d vote for Obama.”

Robert Shrum: ….. unrequited love has transformed Romney’s progress toward the Tampa convention into a rough and rutted road, steadily weakening him for the contest with President Obama, and almost certainly strengthening Democratic chances not just in 2012, but in 2016.

….. Romney is a recurringly hard sell in a political party that has morphed, as one GOP strategist privately puts it, into a sectarian religious party….. The long contest, the constant pandering, and his own tendency to sound like a political incarnation of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous have taken their toll on Romney as a general election candidate … As the economy improves, Romney’s rationale wanes: Why do we need an out-of-touch, unlikeable, asset-stripping ex-CEO to secure a recovery that’s already underway?

TampaBay.com: Vice President Joe Biden slipped into the bay area for a fundraiser Wednesday, where he cheered for the spirited Republican presidential primary to continue for as long as possible. “God love them, as my mother would say. I hope they have another 20 debates,” Biden told more than 200 people gathered at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort in downtown St. Petersburg.

“…. I have never seen a time in my lifetime when Republicans haven’t tried to hide the ball, to use a sports metaphor – when they said they were ‘compassionate conservatives. We care about health care. We must preserve Medicare,’ etc. They’re not hiding the ball any more at all, guys. God bless them, they’re saying exactly what they believe. This is going to be the starkest choice the American public is going to make in a long, long time.”

….. It may be one of the few times where a candidate walked into a fundraiser wearing one tie and left wearing another. In the $1,000 photo line, one man admired Biden’s red tie. The VP returned the compliment about the man’s purple tie and suggested they trade. They did.

….. Democrats have long complained they can’t distill their campaign theme to a simple bumper sticker phrase. Biden offered one for 2012: “Osama Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”

President Barack Obama walks across the tarmac to greet people after arriving at North Carolina Air National Guard Base in Charlotte, N.C., March 7, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

3:30: PBO hosts President John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana for a meeting.

5:35: PBO and Michelle Obama have dinner with winners of a campaign contest.

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PBS: The web is abuzz today about video of a speech Barack Obama gave in 1990 at Harvard Law School defending the actions of Professor Derrick Bell ….

….. the website BuzzFeed published a clip of the speech …. it claimed the clip was “not previously available online” ….. But there’s nothing new about the clip or Obama’s role in the controversy at Harvard Law School …. it’s been online at our site and on YouTube since 2008…..

In light of today’s controversy, and Breitbart.com editors’ claims that the footage had been edited, we pulled the full archived tape. In includes not just Obama’s speech, but other footage from the rally and portions of Derrick Bell’s speech….

While BuzzFeed did not publish all of the available footage of the event they did post the entirety of what was available of Obama’s speech….. (See the link to watch the video)

‘We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.’

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Greg Sargent: A new national poll of Latino registered voters by Univision News/ABC/Latino Decisions has some very interesting findings that cast doubt on GOP chances of making inroads among them:

* 61% of Latinos trust Obama and Dems to make the right decisions to improve the economy, versus only 24% who pick Republicans.

* 57% of Latinos say Obama’s health reform law should be left to stand, versus 28% who support repeal.

* Romney’s favorable ratings among Latinos are upside down, at 28-41, though many are undecided.

* 72% of Latinos say that the GOP either doesn’t care about reaching out to them (45%) or is outright hostile to them (27%)…..

….. the fact that nearly three-fourths of Latinos think the GOP either doesn’t care about or is outright hostile towards them is another sign that the primary may have badly damaged any GOP hopes of making real inroads with them.

WCNC: North Carolina’s favorite son is hoping his voice will help keep President Barack Obama in the White House for another four years.

On Friday in Ballantyne, musician James Taylor appeared at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Convention with First Lady Michelle Obama…..

…. For the next few months he is on tour and on a mission to keep Barack Obama in the White House.

On Taylor’s hat, you’ll find a small pin reading “Obama 2012.” “It’s a 2012, pump up the spirit pin,” Taylor said. “I do wear it with pride. I am so, I really love this President. I love what it says about America that we were able to elect this man… and I think of him as almost uniquely honest in this political world.”

Steve Benen: On the Political Sex Scandal Richter Scale, I’m still not altogether sure why this even registers at all. Given what we know, Weiner shared adult content with women he met online. They were adults and the interactions were consensual. He didn’t commit adultery (Ensign), he didn’t hire prostitutes (Vitter, Spitzer), he didn’t solicit anyone in an airport bathroom (Craig), he didn’t pretend to be someone else in order to try to pick up women (Lee), he didn’t abandon his office for a rendezvous with his lover (Sanford), he didn’t leave his first two wives after they got sick (Gingrich), he didn’t have a child with his housekeeper (Schwarzenegger), there’s no sex tape (Edwards), and no interns were involved (Clinton). He’s not even a hypocrite — Weiner has never championed conservative “family values,” condemning others for their “moral failings.”

At 12:00 Breitbart again expresses his admiration for shit-photoshopper Jack Cashill …. err, see here

At 12:25 Breitbart claims that Bill Ayers admitted writing the President’s first book … err, see here … it’s surprising, I know, but Breitbart doesn’t get it ….. Ayers was ‘taking the piss’, as they say in Ireland😆

Greg Sargent (Washington Post): After standing by Andrew Breitbart yesterday, the Huffington Post has made the decision to yank him from their highly-trafficked front page, in the wake of some vicious comments Breitbart has since made about former White House adviser Van Jones, a HuffPo spokesman confirms to me.

HuffPo had come under increasing criticism for giving Breitbart a major platform from groups like Color of Change, which argued that he has a history of racially-charged and factually-challenged political activism that has no place on a reputable news and opinion site. While Breitbart will still be allowed to post at HuffPo, the decision to yank him from the front page and downgrade his visibility effectively gives the critics what they’d asked for.

Last night, HuffPo was still sticking by Breitbart, arguing that the site was committed to airing a range of voices and maintaining that Breitbart’s posts on HuffPo had remained civil. But this morning, the Daily Caller published an interview with Breitbart in which he railed at Van Jones as a “commie punk” and a “cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak.” This put HuffPo in a particularly awkward spot, and now HuffPo has had enough.

National Journal: As Pres. Obama returns from a Hawaiian vacation to a more Republican Washington Tuesday, his approval rating in the latest Gallup Daily tracking poll sits at its highest point in eight months.

Fully half of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing, while 42 percent disapprove. The last time Obama’s approval stood at 50 percent was for the three-day, rolling sample conducted last May 29 to June 1….

The jump in Obama’s approval rating comes shortly after a lame-duck session of Congress that Obama hailed as “a season of progress” before departing on his Christmas vacation.

Hmm, I wonder if the LA Times’ Andrew Malcolmfeels a little embarrassed now?

Malcolm: “Obama pays no attention to opinion polls, of course, because he’s so focused on the nation’s well-being. Which is probably another good thing because the president’s job approval has started down again. After all the pre-holiday hoopla over the “productive” lame-duck session of Congress that only added a trillion dollars to the national debt, the Democrat’s end-of-his-second-year approval rating has declined to 47% from 49%, with 46% disapproving of his job performance, according to Gallup.”

Meanwhile…..

Media Matters: We already noted that Andrew Breitbart blogger Dana Loesch posted the confused claim that the New York Times, among others, “underreported” the Tea Party story last year, when in fact the Times managed to publish more than 1,000 articles and columns mentioning the Tea Party in 2010.

Oops.

Well, look what else appeared on Loesch’s soggy list of stories the biased mainstream media have ignored: Obama’s sagging popularity